Day 35 - FDC Open House (Play Date!)

Jedi is three months old today! I think he's doing remarkably well for a puppy his age. He's mastered the dog door and with that came potty training. I can't recall the last time he had an accident in the house, although he did pee on a dog bed at my parent's house last weekend. I also don't recall the last time we had to use the puppy pen, as since he has been trustworthy about not going potty in the house I've let him run free. I've left the puppy pen intact only because my parent's dogs are staying here next weekend and it will likely come in handy then, but I would imagine it can come down after that (more wrestling room!). I still crate Jedi in the bedroom when I'm getting ready in the morning (showering, etc.), but that's mostly because that's when he eats his "second breakfast" of canned food and yogurt. I let him out once I'm out of the shower now, since I don't feel like I have to worry about him anymore. He's such a good puppy.

During breakfast training we got some really good pivots, so I started to incorporate the exercise from lesson three where we are supposed to have them pivot to our leg in heel position. He caught on to this faster than I expected, although he did express some frustration at not being entirely sure what the objective was, and at not being able to complete his full circle. He did well with it at lunch, too, so we'll just keep working on it and eventually start to fade the large bowl that he uses to pivot.

I introduced backing up the stairs at lunch today and Jedi did great! I'm just using bottom and beep-beep together and I was able to get him to back up two stairs in his very first session. We also did more spoon/bowl reps in each training session. Our post-lunch play session was slamming the teeter for a toy (the Holee Roller with a tennis ball inside) -- he's got the slamming part down, but stopping in a bottom is hard when we are amped up for the toy.

Jedi got to tag along to the open house at Family Dog Center's new location for his outing of the day. Even better is that we planned ahead and arranged to have a play date with a friend's super cute 10-week old Vizsla puppy, Voodoo. There was a lot of barking from the boarded dogs when we first arrived and Jedi wasn't too sure he wanted to come out of the van, but he quickly realized that the barking dogs were nowhere to be seen -- and then he saw people and was ready to go say hello to everyone.

Voodoo arrived soon thereafter and then it was just play, play, play. They were ideally suited to each other, both in size and play style. I was surprised at how similar in size they were considering that Jedi is about 3 weeks older. Voodoo has long, lanky legs, but I'm guessing Jedi outweighs him by a bit.

They played so well together. They took turns wrestling and ran around a bit -- it was mostly wrestling, though. They explored the tall grass around the area and Voodoo got to chase Jedi while Jedi fetched his ball (Jedi pretty much shuts everything else out when the toys come out).

After much playtime outside the puppies got to go inside to check things out. They met lots of new people and a few new dogs as well. Jedi did great hanging out inside the retail store. We got to go exploring to see the training/play area, the outside runs, and another training room. That room had the puppy dog walk set up, so I let Jedi go up and over that a few times (no fear there, obviously).

We got a tour of the attached house next and carried the puppies through there. Oh my goodness, Jedi is getting heavy. It's not as easy to schlep him under my arm anymore. I'll be curious to get a weight on him at the vet on Monday.

We spent some more time outside and then went back into the retail area to buy some chewies. One of the employees offered to take Jedi while I bought my stuff, so I handed him off to her and he didn't even give me a second glance. She took him back into the training area and then they went outside together while I was talking. I opted to go get him back when I saw her near another dog with him, just because I want to monitor all dog interactions at this point and I didn't know the dog. Around this time someone asked if their kid could pet Jedi, so of course the answer was yes and Jedi had another good little human experience. He's doing really well about not jumping up on people, especially short ones, so hopefully that continues (because it's not like I've done any training with it).

We were at the open house for almost two hours and I think Jedi was sleeping before I even got back on the road. What a fun day for him! He should sleep well when I have to leave the dogs tonight.